The flawed icon

SDLq Duke gave an example of courage that made him more than an actor and a friend – he was an American institution,” was the verdict of fellow star Charlton Heston. “In an age of few heroes he was the genuine article,” said President Jimmy Carter.

But 30 years on from his death, a more rounded picture of the late John Wayne has emerged. The man whose film characters never shirked from doing their duty, however perilous, failed to enlist in the Second World War, preferring to put his career before battling the Nazis.

The straight-talking, straight-shooting epitome of fair play on screen, Wayne was an enthusiastic supporter of The House Committee on Un-American Activities, which persecuted actors and directors for holding the “wrong” political opinions – he helped get a director blacklisted.

The man who crusaded for old-fashioned American family values was a serial womaniser and adulterer, who was married three times and who had a string of affairs. His views on race and his indifference to the fate of America’s indigenous Indian population would be considered offensive if not downright racist by many today.

“I believe in white supremacy until blacks are educated to a point of responsibility,” he once said. “I don’t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.”

On the subject of Native Americans he declared: “I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.”

“Wayne was one of America’s biggest and most repugnant frauds,” says Glenn Greenwald, who devoted a chapter to the actor in his recent book Great American Hypocrites. “The gap between Wayne’s image and the reality of his life is enormous.”

B ut despite his flaws Wayne was still a heroic figure and his life story was certainly as adventurous as any of his films.

Ironically, the man who became ­famous the world over for his super macho image was christened with a woman’s name. Wayne never liked his first name Marion and preferred to be called Duke after the huge dog which accompanied him everywhere when he was a child. The nickname stuck with him for the rest of his life.

A promising career as an American football player was cut short by injury and the young Marion Morrison found a job as a prop man in Hollywood. It was while he was loading furniture from a warehouse that he was spotted by director Raoul Walsh, who not only gave him a starring role in his new western but a new professional name: John Wayne. He appeared in numerous low-budget westerns in the Thirties but it was in 1939, when he starred in John Ford’s classic film Stagecoach, that his career really took off.

That same year saw the outbreak of the Second World War but when America became involved in the war in 1941, Wayne preferred to stay at home and continue to make pictures.

“Because the most successful male actors, including older ones, went to fight, he was able to stay in Hollywood and become extremely rich playing war heroes,” says Greenwald.

Wayne was officially exempt from military service due to his age and family status, so he cannot be classed as a “draft-dodger”. But despite the pressure from friends, he made little effort to get his deferment waived. Wayne’s reluctance to join up led to resentment from fellow actors.

“I think the He-men in the movies belong in the Army, Marine, Navy or Air Corps,” said fellow cowboy star Gene Autry, a flight officer in the US Air Force. “Every movie cowboy ought to devote time to the Army to helping win until the war is over, the same as any other American citizen.”

It was during the war that Wayne, an ardent anti-communist, helped form the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, whose aim was to defend the film industry against communist infiltration. Wayne supported the notorious McCarthyite witch-hunts of the immediate post-war years and claimed to have had director and ex-communist Carl Foreman blacklisted for failing to “name names”. Foreman was barred from working in Hollywood for six years but Wayne said he never regretted getting him blacklisted.

Wayne’s anti-communist crusading made him a target for Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union. Despite being a fan of Wayne’s films, Stalin is said to have ordered his assassination. Stunt man Yakima Canutt claimed in a meeting with Wayne’s biographer Michael Munn that two Russian agents posing as FBI men attempted to kill Wayne in Los Angeles. The plot was foiled when Wayne and a friend abducted the men and drove them to a deserted beach, where they staged a mock execution. The agents, relieved to escape with their lives, were taken away by the real FBI.

Wayne’s private life was just as colourful and dangerous. His second wife Esperanza Bauer, a Mexican ­actress, once attempted to shoot him , convinced that he was having an affair . “I’ve had three wives, six children and six grandchildren and I still don’t ­understand women,” he once said.

Wayne was one of the many lovers of the German actress Marlene Dietrich. Actress Anna Lee relates how the ­affair started when Dietrich invited Wayne to her dressing room and then lifted her skirt to reveal her famous legs. Towards the end of his life, Wayne was asked if he ever fell in love with any of his leading ladies. “Well yeah, Marlene Dietrich,” he replied.

Although he had shirked military duty in the Second World War, Wayne showed increasing bravery in his later years. A strong supporter of American involvement in Vietnam, Wayne went out to visit US troops in the field, scorning VIP treatment. Once his helicopter landed in the midst of a battle.

But it was his courageous and very public battle with cancer that earned him the admiration of millions.

There is speculation that Wayne contracted cancer having been affected by nuclear fall-out during the making of the 1956 film The Conqueror, which took place just 137 miles downwind from where the US had carried out nuclear weapons tests; 91 of the 220 people who worked on the film developed some form of cancer but Wayne blamed his illness on smoking.

In 1964 he had a lung removed and went public, which helped raise millions for cancer research. In the late Seventies his cancer returned, this time to his stomach but he refused painkillers so he could be alert in his final days with his children.

Wayne was also capable of acts of extraordinary kindness. One night Wayne returned late to his hotel room to find a message from a woman who said her little girl lay critically ill in a local hospital. The woman wrote: “It would be so much to her if you could pay her just a brief visit”. At 3am, the film star set out from his hotel and visited not only the child but every patient in the hospital.

T he affection with which Wayne was held by the American public was such that he would surely have had a great chance of becoming President . But despite the urgings of the Republican Party he refused, believing that the American people would never elect an actor as President. Ironically, a year after his death, his old film star buddy Ronald Reagan moved into the Oval Office.

Wayne, despite his image being tarnished, remains an American icon. Earlier this year he finished third in a poll of America’s favourite film stars, the only deceased actor in the top 10.

His popularity owes much to the fact that, whatever his faults, he was a man who always did things his own way. As he once declared: “I have lived my life so that my family would love me and my friends respect me. The others can do the hell what they please.”